Wednesday, May 2, 2012

My first glitter gradient mani!

Soooo in the wake of not dealing well with the aforementioned juice cleanse, I completely spaced on writing my post for yesterday, so you get 2 posts today, and this one is about the sweet manicure spotted in Monday's post. So without further adieu...my very first glitter gradient manicure!

First, let me wax about Illamasqua Nomad, which is the base for this polish. It is MAGNIFICENT. It is a glorious, gorgeous jade green that applies pretty much perfectly. I had almost no clean up and it barely needed 2 coats.

I used 2 China Glaze polishes for the glitter, "White Cap" which is a sheer gold glass fleck and "Medallion" which is extra small and small gold and medium silver holo glitter in a clear base. Both polishes are great, though I didn't really need "White Cap", "Medallion" is spectacular all on its own.

To make the gradient, I did a layer of polish on the top third of the nail and let that set for about a minute. I then applied a thick second layer over that, and working quickly, took a clear polish and ran that over the top and middle third of the nail from the top down. I used a clear Essie I had lying around, but any clear polish will do as long as it's not a quick drying polish. I only had to do this all once through.

I think it came out fairly well for a first time, and if I had more patience it probably would have been even nicer! I hope you liked this post, I'll be back later with the juice cleanse update!